Domesticating

We live in the campo now, and I have been adjusting to the non-center of the city life. Our house is on a little hill overlooking canyons and volcanoes and terraced fields in the distance. Crazy plants envelop our little hobbit hole of a dwelling and sweet, unknown bird calls greet us first thing in the morning.

This charming little life contrasts sharply with what I expect to find in Lago Agrio, where we will travel tomorrow to learn the ins and outs of our mycoremediation work. As far as we know, the oyster mushies are growing like mad and eating up oil. We have high hopes for their mushie-miracles but know their task is a vast one....The biggest oil spill in history extends throughout much of the petroleum-rich Oriente (Eastern Ecuador), covering formerly lush Amazonian jungle, suffocating plants, poisoning animals and causing cancer in humans.

Although mycoremediation can slowly go about eating away petroleum, breaking its toxicity down into environmentally friendly molecules, the road ahead is a long one. In the meantime, we will seek out innovative ways to transform and heal the situation which our own society´s energy addictions caused, such as:

Help affected community members grow mushrooms and thus generate the income they need to get the hell away from there, restore the fields from which they eat through mycoremediation, and avoid exposure to the swimming pool-sized open, unlined waste pits which contain raw petroleum. Black toxic sludge creeps from the underground into drinking, washing and bathing water - all this, so that Americans could drive across exburbs in the desert more cheaply. Lack of safety precuations means drastic profit increases for petroleum companies.

Tomorrow we will go, meet people, see the situation, and have a clearer idea of how to best serve and defend this land of incredible cultural and biotic diversity. I will be wearing a respirator and tall boots to keep toxins off my skin. This is my privilege, to be able to protect my health, and I know that the people I will meet tomorrow will not enjoy these defenses. I hope we can make friends even if I look like an alien in my respirator contraption.